At that moment he heard two sharp short sounds, less musical than a pipe and not so loud or harsh as a scream.  He looked up.  A kingfisher had flown across the oily water.  Petrushka shouted; and the kingfisher skimmed over the water once more and disappeared in the trees on the other side of the river.  Petrushka rolled and lit another cigarette.  Presently he heard the two sharp sounds once more, and the kingfisher darted again across the water:  a bit of fish was in its beak.  It disappeared into the bank of the river on the same side on which Petrushka was sitting, only lower down.

“Its nest must be there,” thought Petrushka, and he remembered that he had heard it said that no one had ever been able to carry off a kingfisher’s nest intact.  Why should he not be the first person to do so?  He was skilful with his fingers, his touch was sure and light.  It was evidently a carpenter’s job, and few carpenters had the leisure or opportunity to look for kingfishers’ nests.  What a rare present it would be for Tatiana—­a whole kingfisher’s nest with every bone in it intact.

He walked stealthily through the bushes down the bank of the river, making as little noise as possible.  He thought he had marked the spot where the kingfisher had dived into the bank.  As he walked, the undergrowth grew thicker and the path darker, for he had reached the wood, on the outskirts and end of which was the spot where he had made the steps.  He walked on and on without thinking, oblivious of his surroundings, until he suddenly realised that he had gone too far.  Moreover, he must have been walking for some time, for it was getting dark, or was it a thunder-shower?  The air, too, was unbearably sultry; he stopped and wiped his forehead with a big print handkerchief.  It was impossible to reach the bank from the place where he now stood, as he was separated from it by a wide ditch of stagnant water.  He therefore retraced his footsteps through the wood.  It grew darker and darker; it must be, he thought, the evening deepening and no storm.

All at once he started; he had heard a sound, a high pipe.  Was it the kingfisher?  He paused and listened.  Distinctly, and not far off in the undergrowth, he heard a laugh, a woman’s laugh.  It flashed across his mind that it might be Tatiana, but it was not her laugh.  Something rustled in the bushes to the left of him; he followed the rustling and it led him through the bushes—­he had now passed the ditch—­to the river bank.  The sun had set behind the woods from which he had just emerged; the sky was as grey as the water, and there was no reflection of the sunset in the east.  Except the water and the trees he saw nothing; there was not a sound to be heard, not a ripple on the river, not a whisper from the woods.